December 22, 2005

The Baby Food for Grown-ups

Leave a Comment / Up Front / Jewish Journal Staff

Along with the wave of ergonomically correct strollers and SAT flashcards for the 5-month-old comes Homemade Baby. This baby food company certifies its products as organic, non-GMO (no genetically modified organisms), fair trade and kosher, and offers services like a Tasting Room and a Meal Integrity System to ensure that your child stays happy and healthy with every bite.

The owners, Theresa Edy Kiene and Matt Kiene, started Homemade Baby after Theresa received rave reviews for the home-cooked baby food she served her own three daughters. Kids and parents (who, when encountering the dishes at the Kienes’ dinner parties, did not realize they were being served baby food) demanded more. So the Kienes left successful careers in television to start the company, armed with a mission: to make fresh and nutritious food available to every child, giving them a “head start toward making smart, healthy food choices for life.”

Products are organized according to “a texture for every tyke.” The 6- to 8-month-olds can choose from four flavors — apple, pear, peas and squash — under the So Smooth label. Good Mushy (9-12 months) and Kinda Chunky (12-plus months) get more complex; flavors include Squapples and Baby Tex Mex. Homemade Baby’s Cordon Bleu chef, Troy Irvin, calls the flavors “taste adventures” perfect for “those little chewing muscles.”

Homemade Baby delivers anywhere in the USA. (If you live in the L.A. area, they guarantee next-day delivery to your front door.) Don’t want to pay for shipping? Not sure which products your child will like? Head to the tasting room at 10335 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Culver City, open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m., where your child (and you!) can taste test new flavors and pick up an order. The tasting room also offers talks for parents concerning nutrition and other child development issues. Homemade Baby’s kosher certification is from Kosher Overseers of America, under the supervision of Rabbi Zvi Hollander.

For more information, call (800) 854-8507. For a link to Homemade Baby, visit www.homemadebaby.com.

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Did the Jews Kill Christmas?

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Andrew Silow-Carroll

Last year’s big holiday debate was whether the Jews had ruined Christmas. This year, with erev Chanukah coinciding with Christmas Day, people have begun asking how we can save it. The Wall Street Journal reports that retailers hope an unusually late Chanukah can boost holiday sales and bail out underperforming retailers.

If higher sales mean more yuletide cheer for our Christian neighbors, it’s the least we can do. Not that Bill O’Reilly and the Catholic League and a bunch of others are exactly blaming Jews when they complain that a secular, politically correct “elite” is preventing store clerks from chiming “Merry Christmas.”

But theirs was certainly an us-and-them argument, and I, a card-carrying member of the ACLU (that is, AMERICANS who observe CHRISTMAS with LO-MEIN and an UNCROWDED movie theater), was pretty sure who the “them” was.

O’Reilly is being joined by a colleague on FOX News, John Gibson, the author of “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought (Sentinel). His book “focuses on the instances of very secular signs of Christmas being banned because they are thought to be too Christian or that they would offend someone,” Gibson writes. “These symbols include: Santa, the Christmas tree, the word Christmas and even the colors red and green.”

Gibson calls the school districts and city administrators who would tone done such symbolism “anti-Christmas warriors.”

Gibson’s thesis is as overblown as his language. He trots out a few highly publicized incidents (highly publicized by FOX, that is) — including the Maplewood-South Orange, N.J., school district’s decision to ban religious instrumental music — to suggest that the Christians have become the new Marranos, secretly honoring the birth of their messiah while publicly declaring their allegiance to Michael Moore.

The idea that a vast religious majority in this country is being suppressed by a small but powerful band of “liberals” — O’Reilly calls them “the loony left, the Kool-Aid secular progressive ACLU America-haters” — would be funny if it didn’t speak to a dangerous sense of victimhood within much of conservative Christian rhetoric. With Republicans firmly in control of the White House and Congress, and with a president now attempting to shape the Supreme Court in a way pleasing to his evangelical base, you’d think Christian activists might be able to proclaim, “Mission Accomplished.”

Instead, Christian activists are waging the culture war with a worrisome combination of triumphalism and insecurity. Note how Christian activists responded to objections — from Jews and others — to a climate of insensitive, even aggressive proselytizing at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“The long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the House of Representatives,” Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) thundered last spring in response to a House amendment calling for an investigation into the academy. Seventy members of Congress signed a letter to President Bush denouncing sensitivity guidelines for the academy, saying it was Christian clergy who were facing intolerance.

This is all necessary background to the debate surrounding recent remarks by two Jewish leaders — Rabbi Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League and Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Foxman talks about the Christian right’s “arrogance in their efforts to pull every institution toward Christianity.” And Yoffie says, “In our diverse democracy, Americans need a common political discourse not dominated by exclusivist theology. [Americans] do not want to hear that unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text, you cannot be a moral person.”

Even many Jews were made uncomfortable by Yoffie’s and Foxman’s remarks. Much of that is the debt many think we owe to Christian Zionists who, at a time when Protestant churches are talking divestment and secular Europeans would throw Israel to the wolves, are offering the Jewish state their unconditional support.

Or maybe not so unconditional. As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, perhaps the top Jewish figure in outreach to pro-Israel evangelicals, told Salon’s Michelle Goldberg: “I don’t think it’s reached that point that Jews should be alienating their greatest friends in the real battle of Jewish survival.”

The internal Jewish struggle of the moment is determining exactly what that “point” is. When your fourth-grader is encouraged to sing “O Tannenbaum,” it’s probably too early to complain. When the Cossacks start knocking on the windows, it’s too late. But somewhere in between the things that make us uncomfortable and the things that make us truly suffer, we need to find our voices to demand the things that make us Americans.

In his famous letter to Newport’s Touro Synagogue, George Washington applauded the “liberal” idea (his word, not mine) that America was founded on: That non-Christians are not merely “tolerated” in this country, “as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people.” Instead, he wrote, “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”

Compare that to what Gibson told syndicated radio host Janet Parshall on Nov. 17: “I would think if somebody is going to be — have to answer for — following the wrong religion, they’re not going to have to answer to me. We know who they’re going to have to answer to…. And that’s fine. Let ’em. But in the meantime, as long as they’re civil and behave, we tolerate the presence of other religions around us without causing trouble, and I think most Americans are fine with that tradition.”

Maybe this won’t sound civil or well behaved, but if it has reached the point that merely by standing up for diversity Jews are alienating their friends, it’s time to ask what kind of friends they really are.

Andrew Silow-Carrol is editor in chief of the New Jersey Jewish News.

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To Bomb or Not to Bomb Iran?

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Leslie Susser

The extreme Islamist president of Iran has lobbed all sorts of verbal bombshells at Jews and Israel in recent weeks: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly reiterated his desire to wipe Israel off the map, and he implied that the Holocaust is a myth.

All of this was bad enough, but there’s also the matter of actual bombshells, and the fact that Iran’s hardline regime may be perversely fervent enough to lob a few of those — at Israel, at U.S. forces abroad, or at any other real or perceived enemies.

And with a little bad luck, those bombshells could even be nuclear.

Some experts and Israel government officials fear that Iran may be just months away from being able to produce a nuclear bomb, and a fierce debate is raging in Israel over how to react.

The critical date could come in March, when a series of developments will converge:

• It will be too late to stop Iran from making a bomb, according to Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Farkash-Ze’evi.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency is due to issue a report that month on Iran’s nuclear drive that could lead to sanctions against Teheran or highlight the international community’s inability to act in concert on the issue.

• Israeli elections are scheduled for March 28, with the Iranian nuclear threat already shaping up to be a hot campaign issue.

As if to underscore that things are coming to a head, the London Sunday Times reported this month that Israel has ordered elite forces to be ready by late March for a possible strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Both Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office and Israeli defense officials dismissed the Sunday Times story as a “baseless fabrication.”

At the same time, Sharon says Israel will not be able to tolerate a nuclear Iran and that the Jewish state has the capability to act to prevent it.

“We have the ability to deal with this and we are making all the preparations to be ready for such a situation,” he declared in an early December news conference.

But does Israel really have a military option against the Iranian nuclear threat? And can it go it alone, as it did against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981? Most leading Israeli pundits are skeptical. And some fear election rhetoric could compromise Israeli policy, hurt Israel’s international standing and generally prove counterproductive.

Iranian statements over the past few months underline just how dangerous the threat to Israel could be.

In October, Iran’s hard-line President Ahmadinejad said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” and earlier this month he said Israel should be dismantled and re-established in Europe.

He followed that up with his assertion about the Holocaust.

“Today, they have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan. Officials of the regime, instead of backing down through a “clarification,” stood firm.

“Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said over the weekend. “What the president said is an academic issue. The West’s reaction shows their continued support for Zionists.”

Israeli officials say a bomb in the hands of leaders with ideas like these adds up to a rogue regime with a predisposition and the means to destroy Israel.

Israel’s dilemma is acute: how to get the international community to act without seeming to be goading it into action; or alternatively, how to act itself without incurring international opprobrium or aggravating the situation.

Powerful voices in the international community are cautioning Israel against attacking. In Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize over the weekend, the IAEA’s director, Mohammed ElBaradei asserted that force simply wouldn’t work.

“You cannot use force to prevent a country from obtaining nuclear weapons,” he told the Oslo-based Aftenposten. “By bombing them half to death, you can only delay the plans. But they will come back, and they will demand revenge.”

It is precisely because of the complexity of the issue that Sharon has been keen to put it on the election agenda. His message is plain: Labor leader Amir Peretz is too inexperienced to handle it, and Likud nominee Benjamin Netanyahu too unreliable.

Indeed, Netanyahu seemed to play into Sharon’s hands by declaring that if he became prime minister, he would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities the way had bombed the Iraqi reactor under Menachem Begin. This drew a sharp editorial response from the Israeli daily Ha’aretz: “Whoever publicly recommends an Israeli military option sins doubly. He incites the Israeli public unnecessarily; presents Israel as pushing the U.S. into a major new war; drags this sensitive subject into the overheated rhetoric of an election campaign; and invites Iranian threats and various anti-Israel reactions.”

Official Israeli policy remains deliberately vague.

On the one hand, Israeli officials insist that for now the policy is to help mobilize international pressure on Teheran, but they refuse to rule out a future Israeli military strike.

“At the moment, in the current phase, the focus is in the sphere of international diplomacy,” Amos Gilead, head of the Defense Ministry’s strategic policy team, explained on Israel TV. But then, commenting on the Sunday Times story, he said he denied “the specifics” of the report, including the timetables and the Israeli intelligence operation in northern Iraq. But, he added, “it’s impossible to say in advance that all the options will be ruled out.”

Leading Israeli pundits, however, doubt whether Israel really has a military option. Writing in the Ma’ariv newspaper, analyst Ben Caspit pointed out the chief difference between Iraq in 1981 and Iran today: Whereas Iraq’s nuclear capacity was concentrated in one weakly guarded reactor, Iran’s fuel enrichment program is via centrifuges housed in several well-protected sites across the huge country.

“To attack, we would need a lot of intelligence, multiple strikes, the ability to hover over Iran for long periods and in large numbers, lots of luck, lots of bunker-busting bombs, and with all that, the chances of success would be slight,” Caspit wrote.

The former commander of the Israeli air force, reserve Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, said that if there is an attack some time in the future, Israel would only be part of a larger force — partly because the job is just too big for Israel to handle alone.

There would be too many targets, each target would need several fighter-bombers, protected by fighters, accompanied by rescue planes to pick up crew members who might be shot down.

“Maybe,” Ben-Eliyahu said, “there will be a joint decision for joint action one day, involving countries like the U.S., Britain, Germany and Turkey.”

Reuven Pedatzur, a strategist at the Netanya Academic College, said he doubts that any such joint action will ever materialize. Nor is it likely that Israel or any of the other players will take action to stop Iran alone.

“Iran may well come to possess nuclear arms,” he said. “And if that happens, Israel will have to learn to live with the Iranian threat and to neutralize it by means of credible deterrence.:

Israel’s deterrent capacity is impressive. Its Arrow anti-missile defense system is the most advanced of its kind in the world. Israel, according to foreign sources, also has an impressive second-strike capability: F-15 fighter bombers that can reach Iran without refueling, Dolphin submarines that can launch nuclear weapons from the sea and long-range missiles of it own. Theoretically, an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel could be blocked by the Arrow system, while an Israeli second strike could destroy Iran.

That equation, strategists like Pedatzur believe, should be enough to deter Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs who effectively rule Iran, if or when they do finally manage to produce a bomb.

Additional reporting by Journal staff.

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Bibi Up, Sharon Down — for Now

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Jewish Journal Staff

Former prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is back in control of Israel’s Conservative Likud Party as his onetime ally and current rival, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, recovers from a mild stroke.

Exit polls showed Netanyahu winning Monday’s Likud Party leadership primary with 47 percent of the vote, well ahead of the 32 percent taken by his top rival, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.

The victory helped rally a right-wing party still reeling from the defection last month of its previous chairman, Prime Minister Sharon. The fact that Netanyahu’s victory came as Sharon recovered in the hospital only raised the stakes in a general election scheduled for March 28.

Before the primary, opinion polls showed the Likud trailing both Sharon’s new centrist Kadima movement and the center-left Labor Party. With Netanyahu at Likud’s helm and Sharon’s health in doubt, however, the political prospects could change.

Despite his age and obesity, Sharon, 77, has been relatively healthy. He will need his strength to fight off Netanyahu, 56, a polished campaigner.

Sharon on Monday appeared to be recovering well from the stroke he suffered last weekend, but his illness probably will have some political ramifications.

His health likely will become a campaign issue, with rival parties contending that Sharon’s brief hospitalization highlights the fact that Kadima is a one-man party. If anything happens to Sharon, the argument goes, Kadima and any government it heads could fall apart.

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Chabad Menorahs Gain Acceptance

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Chanan Tigay

Ten years ago, the American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) sued the city of Beverly Hills to block the local Chabad house from erecting a 27-foot menorah in a public park near City Hall. Displaying the menorah — a Jewish religious symbol — on public property, the AJCongress argued, was unconstitutional.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the city, allowing Chabad to put up the large candelabra. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed the decision.

When it comes to displaying menorahs in public places, what a difference a decade makes.

This Chanukah, Chabad-Lubavitch plans to light more than 11,000 large public menorahs, from Bangkok to Miami Beach. Those lighting the Chanukah candles won’t come strictly from the ranks of America’s Chabad Chasidim; leaders of Jewish organizations across the spectrum, eager to take part in the public celebration of the Festival of Lights, will also be lighting Chabad’s candles.

The growing acceptance of the Chabad menorahs is just one example of a broader trend: As Chabad spreads throughout the United States and the world, America’s mainstream Jewish community is increasingly willing to embrace the movement, whereas in the past many Jewish organizations preferred to keep it at arm’s length.

“I think there’s less fear and more openness on the parts of both Chabad and the broader community to support all who can reach and touch Jews,” said John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York.

Chabad, though, said the recent past offers some indication of how far things have come — and where they may be headed.

“Chabad has not changed that much in a generation,” said Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of the Washington office of the American Friends of Lubavitch. “The organized Jewish community has gone from being indifferent or harsh to being much more welcoming.”

Chabad insiders and observers cite several developments that highlight the change:

• Jewish federations around the country are funding Chabad projects, inviting Chabad rabbis to sit on their boards and committees and including Chabad synagogues in their listings of local places to pray.

• With each passing year, more U.S. Chabad houses become dues-based congregations — like most mainstream Jewish congregations — running on membership payments rather than simply on donations.

• Most Jewish groups no longer sue to prevent Chabad from erecting public menorahs.

• Chabad continues to secure support from Jews outside the movement, even non-Orthodox Jews like Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz.

The movement says its annual budget comes in at more than $1 billion, much of it raised by emissaries in the field for their own programming.

Chabad has made extraordinary efforts to reach out to Jews of every stripe, some of whom have grown to embrace the movement.

“In the market of outreach, Chabad looms large,” said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College.

Dancing rabbis on Chabad fundraising telethons have given the movement a public face, as have the movement’s mitzvah mobiles and the army of young Chabadniks who spend days out on city sidewalks asking passers-by if they’d like to put on tefillin or sit in a mobile sukkah and shake a lulav.

“I think that Chabad and much of Orthodoxy have come of age,” Heilman said. “Orthodoxy in general is much more a part of the discussion. Within that, there’s been a recognition that Orthodoxy is not just one thing.”

Part of the reason Jewish groups were wary of Chabad was the impression that the movement was not out simply to offer Jews positive Jewish experiences, but wanted to make unobservant Jews Chabad adherents. Chabad rejects this notion, although its officials do acknowledge that they wouldn’t mind if those who come in contact with them take on more Jewish rituals.

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The Circuit

Letters

Leave a Comment / Letters to the Editor / Jewish Journal

“Covenantal Judaism”

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) was arguably the leading Jewish intellectual institution in the United States. It was home to a cadre of scholars whose research and publications in the areas of Bible, Talmud, history and Jewish philosophy helped shape the thinking of a large cross-section of American Jewry.

JTS shaped the direction of Conservative Judaism in the United States, producing scholars and rabbis whose trademark was the synthesis of Jewish scholarship with modern life in America. That is why I am baffled that Rabbi David Wolpe, a graduate and product of the intellectual milieu that once was JTS, would produce a manifesto for his movement so focused on form and so thin in substance (“A Manifesto for the Future,” Dec. 2).

I am surprised that the spiritual leader who once challenged our thinking on the historicity of the Exodus, a sermon that was “vintage JTS scholarship,” would envision a Jewish movement void of the intellectual engagement with Torah that was once a trademark of Conservative Judaism, focusing instead on cosmetic name changes and superficial definitions.

In his discussion of covenants, Rabbi Wolpe says, “The covenant at Sinai brings us to our relationship to God.” What he fails to mention is that in the classical Jewish tradition, from Mount Sinai all the way to the JTS of Heschel and Lieberman, the covenant with God at Mount Sinai was always expressed through an intellectual and spiritual dialogue with the Torah we all received at Sinai.

Rabbi Wolpe replaces this aspect of the Sinaitic covenant with a “friendship with God,” an idea that sounds like it comes more from the world of New Age pop-spirituality than it does from the people whose daily prayers invoke the covenant at Sinai by asking God to “open our hearts, inspire our intellect and enlighten our eyes through the teachings of Torah.”

For centuries, spiritual seekers from Rabbi Akiva, Maimonides, the ARI, Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon — and the scholars of JTS — all sought spirituality by penetrating God’s mind through Torah study, not by holding His hand and asking God to take a stroll in the park.

Call it what you will, but a “Covenantal Judaism” void of intellect is nothing more than just another feel-good, self-help movement. The intellectual and spiritual legacy of JTS deserves more than that.

Rabbi Daniel Bouskilla
Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel

Rabbi David Wolpe Responds:

The proposal for “Covenantal Judaism” seeks to reinvigorate the profound and complex tradition of Conservative Judaism. The idea of a “friendship with God” is not mine but rabbinic. The interested reader should check Hagigah 16a, “God is the Friend of the world” creating friendships among people (Pirke D’Rabbi Eliezer 17), swearing eternal friendship to Abraham (Sefer Yestirah 6:7) and taking off from the description of friendship in Isaiah 5:1, Sifre Deut., Menachot 53b, etc.

No serious Jew should assume that covenant is separate from an engagement in Torah or synonymous with a “stroll in the park” (Rabbi Bouskila’s words, not my own). Should I conclude that because Rabbi Bouskila’s reaction omits mention of mitzvot he advocates a Judaism without mitzvot? Of course not.

Let us take one another seriously; no one is negating the centrality of study. We are a people of Torah. Study alone is not enough, however. Real relationship is as rigorous as real learning. As a wise aphorist once said, professors wish we were joined at the head, but God joins us at the heart.

Name changes are not always cosmetic, they are often symbolic — Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel. Redefining Conservative Judaism to “Covenantal Judaism” is an attempt to refocus Jews on our individual and collective mission: “to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8).

Orthodoxy’s Role

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky is correct in his view that a “window has opened to the Orthodox community” (Orthodoxy Has Chance to Reshape Role,” Dec. 9).

However, we at the Orthodox Union take strong issue with the suggestion that we move beyond “traditional parameters.” Many of these traditional parameters are nothing less than definitional of Orthodox Judaism.

Rabbi Kanefsky correctly notes that the participation of Orthodox rabbis on boards with non-Orthodox rabbis has “practically disappeared.” Most Orthodox rabbis adhere to the principles delineated by their teachers or teacher’s teachers of a previous generation.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, the two authorities cited by Rabbi Kanefsky did, indeed, strongly discourage their disciples from pursuing matters of “spiritual religious interest” with non-Orthodox rabbis, and for us, the guidelines of these masters remain in full force.

Rabbi Kanefsky’s advocacy of “interdenominational study groups” presents serious and fundamental problems. Our tradition reveres the concept of Havdalah, the recognition and appreciation of boundaries and differences between groups.

Orthodox Judaism espouses Torah Min HaShamayim, the divine origin of Torah, and accepts the halachic process as it has manifested itself in Jewish history over the past 2,000 years. With such fundamental issues dividing us, it is well nigh impossible to teach Torah from the same platform.

Rabbi Kanefsky’s quote of Rav Soloveitchik’s statement, “Too much harmony and peace can cause confusion of the mind and will erase outwardly the boundaries between Orthodoxy and other movements,” was relevant in its time and unlike Rabbi Kanefsky’s contention, is more relevant in these times of widespread spiritual chaos and confusion.

Rabbi Kanefsky’s position that the strong statements of rabbis of a previous generation are no longer relevant is one which most halachic Jews find alarming. It opens the gates to the slippery slope of relativism and of undermining the halachic process itself.

Whereas the Orthodox Union is prepared, even eager, to cooperate with all Jews on matters of general community welfare, it is committed to following the decisions and guidelines of masters such as Rabbis Feinstein and Soloveitchik in all of our activities, ranging from the regulations of kashrut and Shabbat to broader communal concerns. To belittle the authority of masters of a previous generation because of changes in society echoes Reform perspectives, which we have historically opposed.

This approach is one which is fraught with dangers and difficulties, and which we cannot accept as fundamental policy for the Orthodox world.

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb
Executive Vice President
Stephen J. Savitsky
President
Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations of America

Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky Responds:

I’m grateful for Rabbi Weinreb’s thoughtful response. Rabbi Weinreb has done remarkable work leading the Orthodox Union, expanding the vision of the organized Orthodox community to include the victims of genocide in Darfur, the displaced and hungry of New Orleans and the victims of sexual abuse.

There is a paradox that characterizes much of human relations, that the people we are closest to are the very people when we have the most trouble truly engaging and embracing. It is with regard to linking arms with the people we are closest to — our non-Orthodox brothers and sisters — that Rabbi Weinreb and I disagree.

I also believe that the record shows that over time, the Orthodox community has indeed re-evaluated policy decisions of our eminent teachers, Rabbis Feinstein and Soloveitchik. The commonplace celebrations of bat mitzvah and observances of Yom HaShoah in Orthodox shuls both attest to this.

The slippery slope can indeed be frightening. But any religious community that truly aspires for relevance and impact must have the courage, patience and vision with which successfully navigate it.

THE JEWISH JOURNAL welcomes letters from all readers. Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name, address and phone number. Letters sent via e-mail must not contain attachments. Pseudonyms and initials will not be used, but names will be withheld on request. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Mail: The Jewish Journal, Letters, 3580 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1510, Los Angeles, CA 90010; e-mail: letters@jewishjournal.com; or fax: (213) 368-1684

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Obituaries

Leave a Comment / Obituaries / Jewish Journal

Rabbi Jacob Ott, Former Rabbi at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel,

Dies at 86

Rabbi Jacob Ott, who served for 34 years at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, died of congestive heart failure on Saturday, Dec. 16. He was 86. Ott was born in Chicago in an Orthodox neighborhood, three months after the end of World War I. His study of Torah began at the age of 3, because he didn’t want to be left behind as his father and uncle went off to shul. By 4 he could read Hebrew, and he continued his yeshiva study throughout his youth, including during his undergraduate and post-graduate work at the University of Chicago. He was ordained as a rabbi in Chicago in 1942. A chaplain in the armed forces during World War II, he joined the 83rd Infantry and served in Wales and Luxembourg. He left the army as a major with a bronze star and then moved to Los Angeles, where he would serve as rabbi at Temple Beth El. In 1959, he interviewed for the position of rabbi at the Sephardic Santa Barbara Avenue Temple, which would later become Tifereth Israel. He knew little about Sephardic minhag at the time, and told the committee that he would take the job but gave them six months to find someone else. His so-called ‘temporary appointment’ would last until he retired in 1992. During his tenure he was decorated with a medal of honor by the King of Spain

“Rabbi Ott put this temple on the map,” said Jack Gordon, president of Tifereth Israel. “When I came here to join with my wife-to-be 24 years ago, I was captivated by his sermon. I’m not Sephardic, but I loved that he was asking questions and not giving answers. It was dramatic, interesting, and he engaged the congregation.”

Ott’s wife Bess died in 2001. He is survived by his son, Robert; daughter, Nancy; three grandchildren; and sister, Tybee.

Morton Alexander died Nov. 19 at 86. He is survived by his sons, Bryan, Howard and Michael; daughter, Linda Turcotte; six grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and sister, Marjorie Finer. Groman

Phyllis Fannie DaMauer died Nov 15 at 72. She is survived by her son, Jordan; daughter, Starr; and friends. Chevra Kadisha

Lilian Drew died Nov. 19 at 93. She is survived by her son, Dr. Stanley Ian (Noreen Green); and grandchildren, Aaron and Hannah. Mount Sinai

Sidney Fass died Nov 18 at 94. He is survived by his son, Larry (Tobie) Schwimmer; daughter-in-law, Lindy Schwimmer Asher; five grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; and sister, Shirley. Chevra Kadisha

Arthur Giffis died Nov 17 at 96. He is survived by his sons, Stanley (Tulla), Norton (Sandy) and Howard; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; sister, Florence Solomon. Chevra Kadisha

Stephen Lewis Grace died Nov. 7 at 77. He is survived by his wife, Marcia; daughters, Marjorie (Jeffrey) Grace-Sayers Anna (Jim Blanc) and Deborah; six grandchildren; brother, Irving; sisters, Alice Lapan, Gertrude Leventhal and Rose; and niece, Marion (Ray) Lapan. Groman

Harry Greenberg died Nov. 20 at 97. He is survived by his daughters, Caren Steinberg and Mindi Thelen; and two grandchildren. Groman

RACHEL GREENBERG died Nov. 18 at 78. She is survived by her husband, Harry; son, Jack; three grandchildren; brother, Bernard (Shirley) Toplitzky; brothers-in-law, Joe (Molly) and Morris; and sister-in-law, Millie Greenberg. Hillside

Max Gryczman died Nov. 18 at 86. He is survived by his wife, Bluma; daughter, Sharon (Ari) Koresh; son, Steven (Susan); four grandchildren; and one great-grandson. Mount Sinai

Max Guggenheim Jr. died Nov. 17 at 88. He is survived by his son, David (Holly). Malinow and Silverman

MORRIS HOLLANDER died Nov. 18 at 92. He is survived by his daughter, Susan Harmon; granddaughter Marci (Armi) Carabet; and two great-grandchildren. Hillside

David Karney died Nov. 20 at 80. He is survived by his wife, Irene; daughters Aliza (Marc) Guren and Susanna (Michael) Flaster; stepdaughters, Susan and Lori Lieberman (Joe Cali) and Kim (Michael) McCarty; four grandchildren; five step-grandchildren; sister, Rina (Haim) Gueron; brother, Amiram (Perla); sister-in-law, Marian (Dick) May; and brother-in-law, Bud (Jackie) Cohn. Hillside

LAWRENCE KUSHNER died Nov. 21 at 78. He is survived by his wife, Jean; and stepsons, Steven and Michael Loewy. Sholom Chapels.

Nisel Korinman died Nov 16 at 76. He is survived by his wife, Yanina; sons, Boris and Michael; and sister, Klara Shtarker. Chevra Kadisha

Sylvia Finkelman Lawson died Nov. 20 at 80. She is survived by her son, Craig; and daughters, Michelle Dornfest and Sherry. Malinow and Silverman

FRANK LAZAR died Nov. 3 at 90. He is survived by his wife, Sara; son, Steven; and three grandchildren. Groman

CANDICE LEVENSON died Nov. 20 at 56. She is survived by her husband, Steven Helsov; sisters, Barbara (Tom) and Linda (Kurt); mother-in-law, Gerrie Heslov; and brothers-in-law, Grant (Lysa) and Michael (Lynn) Heslov. Hillside

SHIRLEY BLOSSOM LEVINE died Nov. 21 at 90. She is survived by her son, Mel (Connie Bruck); daughter, Dena (Irv Schechter); seven grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Hillside

Rita Martynova died Nov 13 at 49. She is survived by her husband, Eduard; and son, Igor. Chevra Kadisha

Parvin Messian died Nov 16 at 76. She is survived by her husband, Soleyman; and son, Behrouz. Chevra Kadisha

FANYA MILIKH died Nov. 20 at 73. She is survived by her son, Boris. Sholom Chapels.

Marvin Mitchell died Nov. 21 at 81. He is survived by his wife, Muriel; daughter, Rhona (Abraham) Wacht; son, Burton (Pamela). Mount Sinai

Cecelia Ostraff died Nov. 20 at 99. She is survived by her nephew, Marshall Labow. Malinow and Silverman

WALTER PERETZ died Nov. 18 at 79 He is survived by his wife, Rebecca; son, Arthur; and daughter, Sharon Chapman. Hillside

Elaine Perlsweig died Nov 19. She is survived by her husband, Leon; son, Robert; daughter, Jeanne (Shay) Lumelsky; and three grandchildren. Chevra Kadisha

Helene Rachel Press died Nov. 19 at 89. She is survived by her son, Stephen; daughter, Susan Bailey; and four grandchildren. Groman

MARY PROCEL died Nov. 20 at 83. She is survived by her husband, Morrie; son, Alan; and daughters, Nanette Stark and Deborah. Sholom Chapels.

Edythe Rindler died Nov. 20 at 92. She is survived by her daughter, Marjorie Austin; and sons, Edward, Richard and Alan. Malinow and Silverman

Ida Salem died Nov. 18 at 87. She is survived by her sons, Gary and Raoul; and sisters, Frances Smith, Eve Hornstein, Betty Steinhauser, Bertha Starkman and Bess Lipson. Groman

Leah Schneider died Nov. 21 at 102. She is survived by her sister-in-law, Olga Singer. Malinow and Silverman

Harold Stone died Nov. 18 at 92. He is survived by his daughter, Jennifer (Gordon) Bosserman; sons, Robert (Marcia) and Michael; and four grandchildren. Malinow and Silverman

Rhonda Schachtel died Oct. 19, at 45. She is survived by her husband, Jack; daughter, Michelle; sons, Marc and Marshall; brothers, Steven (Johanne), Jacob and Nicholas Shinder; and parents-in-law, Harry and Linda. Mount Sinai

Rebecca Schwartz died Dec. 1 at 82. She is survived by her daughters, Barbara (Mike) Sion, Marilyn Rado and Ronnie (Lenny) Lieb. Mount Sinai

Frieda Schwortzman died Nov. 12 at 88. She is survived by her sister, Sylvia; and niece, Marion Hefferman. Malinow and Silverman

Joseph Solomon died Nov. 20 at 82. He is survived by his wife, Mildred; daughter, Julie (Maury) Leff; and three grandchildren. Mount Sinai

Phillip Darwin Terrill died Nov 4 at 84. He is survived by his daughters, Candace (Tom) Curley, and Laurie Schwartz. Chevra Kadisha

Paul Unger died Nov. 20 at 83. He is survived by his sister, Frances Topin; and niece, Terry Kaufman. Groman

Dorothy Waxman died Nov. 18 at 86. She is survived by her son, H. Stuart; daughter, Rosalind Landsman; six grandchildren; many great-grandchildren; and sister, Florence Davis. Groman

Obituaries Read More »

He’s Got the Look

Battle Lines Emerge on Marking Holiday

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Matthew E. Berger

The sound of angry Christians railing against the marginalization of Christmas has become the new tune of this holiday season.

Across the country, from department stores to town halls, battle lines have been drawn over how to mark the winter holidays.

Led by evangelical groups, which say the holiday’s religious significance is being ignored, some Christians are fighting back. They’re threatening to sue school districts that have banned the singing of Christmas carols and other places where “Happy holidays” has replaced “Merry Christmas” as the preferred greeting of the season.

Evangelical leaders don’t cast the Jewish community as Scrooge, yet efforts to highlight Christian themes and celebrations at Christmas historically have come at the expense of religious diversity and tolerance, say some Jewish leaders.

“It is not a movement prompted by an animus against Jews or the Jewish community,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who in recent months has spoken out on what he characterizes as the growing evangelical influence in the United States. “But the unintended consequence is that Jews may be blamed for it.”

Rabbi Leah Richman of Pottsville, Pa., received angry letters and phone calls when she called for the removal of a nativity scene in her town square.

“The non-Jewish people in the area are very interested in promoting Christmas and they believe that church and state should be more mingled,” Richman said. “They’re taking my stand as being anti- tolerance and anti-diversity because I’m not tolerant of their nativity scene.”

Instead of opposing the nativity scene, some respondents said Richman should place a menorah nearby. Indeed, much of the evangelical community’s argument has rested on a call for more celebrations of both Christmas and Chanukah, part of a call for a return to “Judeo-Christian values.”

“It just seems to me that what we ought to be aiming for in America is recognizing everyone’s traditions, rather than melding traditions into a homogenized whatever,” said Gary Bauer, president of American Values, an organization associated with the Christian right.

The onslaught of Christmas decorations and programming for years has been a source of quiet frustration for American Jews, but decisions about how to handle it have varied. Some Jewish groups have worked to ensure that religious Christmas displays don’t enter the public square, while others — predominantly the Chabad movement — sought equal treatment for menorahs and other Chanukah decorations.

The inclusion of Chanukah and then the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa has forced retailers and municipalities to seek more generic and inclusive ways of acknowledging all faiths. That has led, in due course, to claims that Christianity has been taken out of Christmas celebrations.

Boston renamed a tree in Boston Common a “holiday tree.” Target, the giant retailer, was criticized for airing commercials in December that did not specifically mention Christmas.

Even Pope Benedict XVI has weighed in, declaring this month that a “commercial pollution” of Christmas could alter the holiday’s true meaning. He suggested families erect nativity scenes in their homes.

The pro-Christmas movement comes at a time of growing evangelical political strength, giving their message increased weight and attention. Evangelicals have fought this year against efforts to remove proselytizing from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and to promote the teaching of “intelligent design” in public schools. Nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court have been evaluated, in part, on their church attendance and their public proclamations of faith.

Some evangelicals have “come to feel a certain strength in their position in America and in the public that they didn’t feel under President Clinton,” said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and chairman of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

Even the White House has been chastised for writing “Best wishes for the holiday season” on its annual Christmas cards.

Those who perceive a decrease in Christmas observance, including media figures like Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson, both of the FOX News Channel, claim Christmas is being excluded from seasonal decorations in a misguided attempt to be sensitive to minorities.

“It’s mostly guilt-ridden Christians,” said Gibson in an interview. He’s the author of “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought” (Sentinel HC).

Added Bauer: “The Jews I know are not offended by the words, ‘Merry Christmas.’ The controversy doesn’t seem to be coming from believing Jews.”

But some Christian leaders do accuse Hollywood, the media and the American Civil Liberties Union of taking the religion out of Christmas — and all three groups are widely viewed as being run by Jews, Foxman said.

Eckstein warned of a backlash if Jews are perceived as being on the front lines of the fight.

In Coatesville, Pa., Councilman William Chertok was accused by a colleague of voting against an increase in the city’s Christmas parade budget because he was Jewish.

“I understand, Mr. Chertok, that Jews don’t celebrate Christmas,” Councilwoman-elect Patsy Ray said in a meeting in November. Her comments prompted rebukes from the City Council and the local media.

Chertok said he voted against the increase for budgetary reasons.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has been often cast as the lead opponent of Christmas celebrations. He said evangelical leaders are trying to place Christmas and Christianity above other religions.

“There’s a kind of Christian triumphalism; a feeling that Christians have to win every battle,” said Lynn, who commented by telephone while shopping for Christmas presents. “There is a fear that other religions are going to be treated the same as Christmas, and that means Christmas won’t have its special place five weeks of the year.”

Scholar Jonathan Sarna asserts that the Christian evangelicals have some reason to be concerned. Because at some level, they are gradually losing their battle with history.

“What we’re seeing in America today, with the evangelical emphasis, will be looked back on as the last gasp to hold onto an America that is [solely] Christian,” said Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.

At the same time, supporters of interfaith dialogue say that as the majority religion in the United States, Christians have a right to see more expressions of their faith.

“It’s a legitimate feeling when 90 percent of the country is for it,” Eckstein said. “I am not threatened by someone who affirms his faith.”

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